Countdown
by mylanadelway
Summary: In an AU where a clock on the back of your hand shows how much time is left until you meet your soulmate, Amu meets a boy named Ikuto right as her countdown reaches zero - and notices that Ikuto's reads the same. Amuto. Rated T for later on.


Amu glanced at the bright numbers burned into the back of her hand, her gaze lingering as she watched the seconds go by. The numbers 000:21:27 stared back at her. _Is it really only that long until...?_ Her thoughts wandered off, wondering what would happen when the countdown finally reached zero.

"Amu-chan!" Her head suddenly snapped back up, responding to her mother's voice. She realized she had been staring at her hand and was daydreaming while doing so.

"Hurry up, Amu-chan. You have to start walking soon."

"Oh, yeah!" She quickly finished the rest of her breakfast and stood up, putting her plate in the sink on the way to the door. "I'm leaving now!" she said as she walked out the door.

As she started walking to school, Amu looked at the countdown again. 000:19:14. She was nervous for the moment it reached zero, but she was more excited. It had taken so long for the time to get this low. She thought back to the day she got that countdown; all her friends congratulated her and were jealous of how little time she had left.

Everyone had a countdown. It just showed up on the back of your hand one day, but no one really knew why it showed up when it did. Amu's had shown up on her hand while she was sitting in class, back when she was in middle school. It's been two years since then.

Even though everyone had a countdown and they all looked exactly the same, there was something unique about them: they all had different numbers. They showed the amount of time it would take until you met your soulmate.

The first number was the number of hours left, the second was the number of minutes, and the third was the number of seconds. _Only half an hour left_, Amu thought, getting excited by how close she was to meeting her soulmate.

As she plopped down in her seat for first period, she couldn't help but peek at her countdown again and gasped. It read 000:02:48. _That means... they're in this class?!_ She had new classmates since it was the beginning of the schoolyear, but she didn't expect her soulmate to be one of them.

A few seconds after the bell rang, a slender, navy-haired boy opened the door loudly and walked into the room, running his hand through his hair while he did so. He looked kind of hot when he did that, but Amu didn't really see anything special about him.

"You're lucky this is the first day of school, Tsukiyomi, or I'd mark you late." the teacher scolded.

"That's exactly why I came late," the boy said, smirking. A few of the students giggled at his remark.

"...Please take your seat, Tsukiyomi." The teacher was obviously taken off guard by his witty comment.

To Amu's surprise, he walked towards her and took the empty seat next to her, dropping his bag onto the floor next to him. The pinkette gave a quick smile and looked back up to the front of the room.

"Since some of us are meeting each other for the first time, let's all turn to the person next to you and introduce ourselves." You could hear a collective groan come from the students as she said this, since everyone just wanted to talk to their friends. Still, people started talking, and soon the room was filled with voices.

Amu turned to the boy next to her. Navy eyes, navy hair, and way taller than her. _Might as well get this over with_, she thought.

"Hey. I'm Amu." she said, somewhat awkwardly.

"Ikuto," he said in return, looking her over. His eyes fixated on her hand.

Noticing this, Amu remembered how close her countdown was to zero. When she looked at it, sure enough, it read 000:00:00. Her eyes widened, realizing she had probably missed the exact moment it ended. Her attention shifted over to something else, though, as she saw that Ikuto's countdown displayed the same numbers as hers.

"Your..." she began, pointing a finger at his hand.

"Yeah. I know. Must be a coincidence."

"Yeah..." she trailed off. Do coincidences really happen with these things? What if it wasn't a coincidence and Ikuto was her soulmate?

Amu shook her head slightly, dissmissing the thought. It must be someone else.


End file.
